Slideshow: Inside Apple, Samsung patent talks

SAN JOSE – Apple warned Samsung in a detailed August 2010 presentation it was violating iPhone and iPad patents. In a separate October 2010 presentation, it offered to license its patents at a rate of $30 per smartphone and $40 per tablet or a total of $250 million in 2010, according to documents released late Friday.

For its part, Samsung contended it was not notified of its alleged infringement of four of the patents in the current case. Samsung submitted into evidence the presentation showing details of Apple’s licensing proposal, but has yet to explain in court its position in those talks.

The August presentation provides one of the most detailed looks to date at Apple’s portfolio of 3,500+ patents and its focus on Google’s Android as its primary target. The 90-page presentation calls out at least 75 Apple patents it alleges the Android OS infringes all across the operating system’s software stack.

The presentation describes at least 27 patents it claims Samsung infringed in its Android phones. The list includes patents not in the current case including U.S. 6,956,564 on rotating displays between landscape and portrait modes and U.S. 7,657,849 on unlocking a smartphone.

Apple also showed several pictures alleging Samsung violated the trade dress of how it brands its iPhones. Apple said it has patents covering features in Samsung’s Symbian and Bada handsets, but did not detail them.

Only one of the patents in the Apple presentation is part of the current suit here in the San Jose trial, the ‘381 patent on the bounce-back feature when a user scrolls past the edge of content. Samsung seized on that fact in court Friday to suggested Apple failed to give notice of the other four patents now at issue in the case.

Apple’s chief patent counsel, Richard “Chip” Lutton, made the presentation, excerpted below, to unnamed Samsung executives on August 4, 2010, Teksler said. Lutton reportedly left Apple earlier this year to work with former Apple exec Tony Fadell’s startup Nest on patent litigation with Honeywell.

In cross-examination, a Samsung attorney submitted a presentation Apple made to Samsung about patent licensing dated October 2010. The presentation made the $30-40 offer per device, calculating total payments for 2010 based on Samsung’s estimated shipments.

The Apple presentation also offered Samsung discounts of up to 40 percent for devices that used Microsoft operating systems such as Windows Mobile. It did not offer discounts for devices using Android or having touch screens.

In his testimony, Teksler said Apple is willing to license its standards-essential and general computing patents, but not those on the differentiating look-and-feel of its products. Teksler has been at Apple since leaving a similar job at Hewlett-Packard three years ago.

“We strongly desire not to license” the look-and-feel patents, Teksler said. “We have over time licensed [some of] them, but I can count [those instances] on one hand quite easily--we do it consciously not enabling anyone to build a clone product,” he said.

Below are excerpts from the 90-page Apple presentation made to Samsung in August 2010, alleging patent infringement. They are followed by key pages from the October 2010 presentation in which Apple outlined its licensing offer.

Personal feeling, but if everyone let's these things just pass. What's the point of being a front runner when all that the other companies have to do is copy the technology right after someone builds it. If the world keeps on letting China and South Korea get away with this, we will eventually look into the world where innovation will be dead because no one will bother bringing new ideas to the table.

What evidence do you have that innovation would stop?As long as there's lots of money to be made I think companies and individuals will continue trekking right along with new ideas to get their hands on it.

This is getting cloudy. So, Apple truly wanted Samsung to come clean before they embarked on this ugly public show. The fact that Samsung is open to go this path means they have confidence they are doing something right.

These Asian firms except Japan are growing up. I can infer that Samsung copied Apple. But if that is illegal is left for the court to decide. Apple copied Blackberry because without BB Steve Jobs might not have dreamth of iPhone.

Steve Jobs:
"Good artists copy; great artists steal."
"It's more fun to be a pirate than to join the navy."
Bill Gates to Steve Jobs:
"Hey, Steve, just because you broke into Xerox's house before I did and stole the TV doesn't mean that I can't go in later and take the stereo."